Presumably they have been living among us, unknown, for some time, but on Friday and Saturday the cosplayers emerged, blinking and scuttling, into public life over the weekend at the IGN Convention, the first gaming and pop-culture event to be held in the capital.
There was a man with no skin, a member of Daft Punk, Ash Ketchum, the cast of Adventure Time, Steampunk Assassins (perhaps drawn by a demonstration booth featuring Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, the latest game in the Ubisoft series, which this time will see Assassins and Templars do battle in Victorian-era London), plus various subgenres, sects and fusions of Steampunk, Goth and emo.
The superheroes queued and jostled to catch a glimpse of Jack Gleeson, otherwise known as evil king Joffrey Baratheon in Game of Thrones, who was greeted with screams from fans when he arrived. The organisers penned him in at the summit of a big, fenced-off stage, designed to control, as best as possible, his exposure to the swarm of overenthusiastic fans.
King Joffrey, First of his Name, King of the Andals and the First Men – Gleeson declined to talk to the media, given that he says he has now retired from acting. Does Jon Snow live and willwe ever find out the truth about his parents? If Gleeson is still in contact with his former castmates and knows those answers, he wasn’t telling – and we must wait another six months to find out, when season six of the HBO drama begins.
The VIP ticket package – which cost Dh500 – included your choice of two autographs from the celebrities in attendance. So that would be Gleeson and voice actor David Fennoy, then.
Fennoy is best known for his role as history professor-turned-zombie dismemberer Lee Everett in the first "season" of Telltale Games episodic video game based on The Walking Dead comic book.
Having played the game, the ending was quite the tear-jerker – I admit to welling up. Ann Hathway has won Oscars for less emotion that Fennoy and his fellow voice cast delivered.
The good folk at IGN booked for Fennoy and Gleeson a day of motorsports at the Formula One Circuit and Ferrari World on Yas Island.
“Abu Dhabi seems as spread out as Los Angeles” – I have my doubts about this – “and is definitely a car culture. I see pockets of marvellous.” Fennoy tweeted.
He also gave his verdict on on Marina Mall – it’s just like the Americana mall in Glendale, California, apparently. This is more believable.
There weren’t too many demo booths showing off the latest and upcoming games, which are often the main attraction at events like this.
I had a go at the aforementioned Assassin's Creed: Syndicate which, unsurprisingly, strongly resembles every other Assassin's Creed game, with the addition an imitation of the Batclaw from the Arkham series of Batman games to make scaling buildings a bit quicker than scrambling up the sides.
Set in Victorian Britain, the accents are suitably plummy, and the costumes have been upgraded with some period pomp. You also get to fight Beefeaters and bearskin-behatted Foot Guards. The combat has been made more difficult and the stealth improved, to tilt the balance more than ever from fight to sneaking and flight. Keep an eye on Arts & Life for a full review.
Battlezone – a reboot of the 1980 Atari arcade classic – also made an appearance at th convention. A 10-year-old wearing an Oculus Rift headset was playing the single demo console that was provided, and a large queue had formed behind him. The visuals harked back to the isometric line drawings of the 1980s original, updated via the reboot of Tron.
Sadly, the game doesn't draw from Battlezone (1998) and Battlezone II (1999), far-sighted experiments that, uniquely, fused real-time strategy with third-person combat. It looked good – but I didn't get the chance to get a hands-on shot of it.
Two other virtual-reality experiences were on offer. Phone company HTC showed ff its Vive virtual-reality product which, in an attempt to boost its gamer credibility, has Valve involved and has been launched as SteamVR. But by the time I arrived on Friday’s opening day, a very long list of people had reserved a go at the tech, and it was booked up far into Saturday’s second day of the event.
Another company rented out Oculus VR headsets to people willing to use them as they sat on a small rollercoaster simulator. It was not clear exactly what the teenagers being juddered and shaken about by their crazily-moving seats could see, but just watching them left me feeling queasy.
“Those 13-year-olds look like they’re having an amazing time,” someone said. I imagined having a go on the ride. My headache got worse.
abouyamourn@thenational.ae
